Anchors Aweigh, 11/17/12, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture 1945
The plot for this movie is really threadbare, in my opinion, and that’s fine, it’s not like it’s a Bergman film or anything. It’s really a nice excuse to watch Gene Kelly dance and hear Frank Sinatra sing. Kelly and Sinatra play sailors on leave from the Navy in Hollywood, and after that it is a string of fun, ‘buddy’ wise guy dialogue, athletic dancing by Kelly and singing by Kelly, Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson (who plays the female lead). My major complaint, and it’s not a new one, is that the movie is way too long. Honestly, it’s not like there’s a storyline, it could have ended at any moment. There are twenty songs in the movie (per my counting in Wikipedia, feel free to check my math) and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, performed by Jose Iturbi and a plethora of pianists at the Hollywood bowl could have (and should have) be omitted. I am not a big fan of Liszt anyway, it just sounds like plinking and plonking on the piano to me and served zero purpose here. The iconic and probably most famous scene, where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry the Mouse, was cool to watch in its entirety (you have probably seen it in excerpts). If they cut out the whole storyline and just let Kelly dance, that would have been okay with me. He was amazing, he dances like a gymnast doing a floor routine, so physical and athletic (if you haven’t seen Singin’ in the Rain, you should do that…it’s long too, but Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds are fabulous). There are not a lot of family movies these days, but if you can sit through it, this might be one. There is a little boy, Donald, who admires Kelly’s character, Joe, who might keep the younger viewers interested.
